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It has come to our attention that you are proposing to remodel one of our political parties along ‘left-wing’ lines. We are sure that this must be the result of some simple misunderstanding and are therefore writing to you in order to put matters straight.

Democracy is, of course, a grand but subtle concept. It is not, we are sure you will agree, simply a matter of counting the votes. The genius of our British version of democracy is that, willy-nilly, the government that is chosen is always the one that will best serve the national interest. You may rest assured that this tradition will continue.

However, while we feel it would be insulting to you to point out that Socialism has been a miserable failure wherever it has been tried, nevertheless, and having just done so, we wish to reassure you that no serious harm can ever come to our island nation, given the checks and balances implicit in our constitution and the capacity of our polity to heal itself. May we be so bold then, in other words and in short, to advise you to – how shall we put it? – get real, because it ain’t going to happen.

Permit us also to remind you that, through centuries of steady evolution, our great modern state has come to rest upon four sturdy democratic pillars: the Monarchy, the House of Lords, the City of London, and our Special Relationship with the United States of America. In more modern times, our illustrious political parties have played their role, too – the Whigs, the Conservatives, and even the Liberals. And, more recently, perhaps we might be so generous as to add your ‘Labour Party’ to the list.

In fact and to be perfectly fair, we feel that, under Mr Blair, your ‘Labour Party’ became a decent little operation. Thus we feel it would be a great shame were anything untoward to happen to it now.

It was once said – by an American, we are told! – that Britain had ‘lost an empire and not yet found a role.’ But we think we can all agree that the purpose of Britain is, to borrow the words of one of today’s popular songs, the ‘same as it ever was’. That this fact is implicitly understood, we may put down to the native common sense of the English people.

We remain your obedient servants, sir, and we trust that we have cleared up that little misunderstanding.

Yours Faithfully,

The British Establishment.

p.s. We hope you will forgive us for respectfully drawing to your attention the fact that we still have an army, a police force, some jolly decent spies, and control of the media. Just so you know.